Friday, April 18, 2008

Runway Runaway at Columbia Museum of Art

The fashion show of the year with Recycled Materials was held last night at the Columbia Museum of Art on Main St in Columbia. It was a huge success and a great fundraiser! They clearly got a much larger crowd than anticipated. The standing room only crowd featured people of all ages and occupations, besides the typical media and artsy crowd.

Rhett Anders, the brainchild behind the event (along with Columbia Design League) led the intros for the evening. Before the show could begin; he instructed all the audience to say as loud as we could "Hey Bitch". The audience followed suit and out come the well known movie star and diva "Lady Chablis" as entertainment. She performed several dance numbers and a few extra dollar bills slid her way, by enthusiastic fans. (clearly they had seen her before!) The outfit I liked the best was a faded denim ensemble worn for the recycled show. It was ripped and torn and adorned with fringe and layered. The top was a midriff bearing crop top. I'd like to know who designed that outfit. I loved it!

The wonderful collection of designs we saw included many beautiful dresses in all lengths. A very southern plantation style dress was made with wine soaked coffee filters, designed by Matthew Mattox and worn by Tamara Greig for a stunning look. I also liked one of the designs by Bohumila Owensby and worn with attitude by professional model Ashley Bennett made out of soda cans and tabs.

One that was great looking and clearly had a lot of work was designed and worn by Jillian Owens. She was in the top 10, which is an honor but she deserved much more!!! The audience voting for the top 6 was a little confusing; she clearly had the loudest applause. But the background music was loud and it didn't get through to the stage that the audience wanted her to be in the top 6. A whole bunch of people booed when she was eliminated because it was a big mistake. Her dress was made from several old prom dresses and romance novels. It was a very elegant looking dress and her hair was really cool too. Girl; who's your hairstylist?? Loved the overall look!

Paige Haggard was funny talking about her design made of Beer caps. She told the audience "this is from a lot of nights getting hammered both literally and figuratively!" If there were an award for most interesting quote of the night; that would be it!!!

As for most professional in every sense of the word, my vote goes to Jeremy Thomas as designer and model. What makes a look really successful, besides looking good, it should be something people will want to buy and wear. Jeremy's outfit had a great look made with towels, curtains and window blinds and it is a very marketable look. If I had been the judge he would have won Number 1 and Jillian Owens would have won Number 2. BTW, I do not know any of the designers or the models in this show.

Anyway, bitches...that's all I have to say. You'll have to google the internet for photos. I only had my cell phone camera and they didn't come out that good. I am looking forward to the event again next year.

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